Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Out Damn Spot!

"My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,

And every tongue brings in a several tale,

And every tale condemns me for a villain."

(Richard III, Act
5, Sc. 3 - William Shakespeare)

I may not have understood the compulsion, or even understood
my actions, but as a child I was very curious about the human body. In
particular, the male forms with whom I attended public school commanded my
attention. I think on this curiosity with much remorse, as it led me, in my
mind, to who I would become. Had I not been so driven, like some invisible
force controlled me, I might have turned out a different way. Although I do
believe there was a genetic predisposition influencing me all the way back
then, I also strongly believe it was environmental factors which reinforced and
secured my homosexual inclinations. I had always tried to cage the beast within
me, yet it consumed me as far back as I can remember.

Fenside
Public School housed a litter of suburbia. North York, in the early 1970s, was
just that, a large district of greater Toronto. It seemed every child from the surrounding
neighbourhoods came from the middle class. We all appeared to have more than to
have not. Almost exclusively Caucasian, the roll call in my classes almost
always contained names like Ian, Ashley and John after John after John. For a
child of 7, it was like finding sustenance in a loaf of white bread.
Eventually, mould began to grow. I don't recall how I first gave in to my proclivity;
I am sure any reason matters little now. I know that temptation gave into
flirtation and flirtation gave into exposure. I figured out early on that I was
good at being what society called a bad boy. I never really understood why I
felt the need to consider myself that way.

I was not
aware or informed of any social, moral or theological reason that what I was
doing was inappropriate. I cannot even imagine how I came to think it would be.
I simply knew it, deep inside, as if I had been told to me. At that age, it was
not about right and wrong. It was all about the craving inside me, one I found
hard to ignore. I was only a boy, but I was drawn to it like I thought a woman
would be. The more I fought it, the more I gave in. I sometimes think I was
convicted by the underlying condition taught to me through Church and Sunday school.
I knew that stealing was wrong and so was cursing, so too was this thing, a
thing which I knew dare not speak its name.

It started
innocently enough. I offered Greg Cody a dollar to show me his stuff. There was
nothing to it really, just a look and no touch, but I was fascinated and knew I
wanted to see more. One dollar led to another, then to another, and soon I had
seen many of my male classmates, standing in the bathroom with their pants
around their shoes. With my sin came the inevitable price. I started stealing
from my parents just to feed this addiction. Any chance I could, I stole some
change here and a dollar there, just to have a taste of this forbidden fruit.
For well over a year, I played with this devil.

Greg and I
were out behind George S. Henry High School on a hot summer's day when around
the corner he came. Inspection had turned to exploration, something clear
enough from our state of undress. Greg grabbed his clothes and stole away,
never to give me the time of day again. I stood helpless, my shorts in the
grass five feet from my face and Jim Duncan sneering at me from behind his
braces. What happened next does not merit explanation, but over that summer my
innocence turned from searching to quite lost. The threat he would tell
everyone what I had been doing was enough to keep me silent. The things he had
me do turned mere blackmail into something warped and abusive, even though I
did not think so at the time. Like a child might think, I was sure he had become
my friend, and would eventually leave me alone. As school resumed that
September, I believed I was finally free of the mess. One day after classes, as
I strolled down Roywood Drive towards home, Jim cornered me against a green
electrical box, one of the large ones you can sit on. What I thought had become
a relationship (of sorts) was now nothing but a menace, something to fear
rather than covet.

I had made
the mistake of telling him how I paid to see my classmates, and now he demanded
the same money just for his silence. When I threatened him in return, he laughed
and dared me to try. I decided to keep quiet. Shame and my inner conscience
told me to do so.Once or twice a week,
I paid a ransom on my dignity. I was trapped by my own doing. With one hand he
would jeopardize my reputation, and with the other he would sneak me away into
bushes or the outer stairwells of apartment buildings in the neighbourhood. Although
he was only 11 or 12 years old, I began to think of him in terms of an
adversary rather than a playmate. I knew that eventually something was going to
have to give.

"Company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of
me."

(Henry IV, Part 1, Act 3, Sc. 3 - William Shakespeare)

Just before
Halloween, in the year of my shame 1973, my Mother called me into her room to
talk. She had noticed my demeanour had changed, my joy was missing and I seemed
secretive and distant. At first I denied there was any problem, but her concern
sent flashes of guilt through my being and I decided that enough was enough. I
was very careful not to reveal my dirty little secret; instead I added fuel to
the fire Jim had set ablaze beneath himself. I came clean, but only up to the
elbow. I revealed how he had been threatening me for money, that he had
convinced me I owed him for the privilege of him not beating me up. Then, as if
blood had splattered all over my hands, I sealed his doom. Perhaps it was the
anger, perhaps it was the hurt he made me feel, I have never been sure, but with
one lie I changed everything forever. Instead of
leaving well enough alone, I turned a bully into a monster. Although I never
once mentioned anything sexually related, I pushed beyond what had really
happened. I suppose it was to protect my own secrets, and to get him good, but
he never threatened to hurt me the way that I said he had. Perhaps I was trying
to put nails in his coffin, but the idea of someone kidnapping me and killing
me did little to stabilize the situation. My Mother grew hostile. I said I
didn't know him, that I didn’t even know his name, that he just appeared one
day out of nowhere and started his tirade. The police were called and they took
down the minimal information I said I could give them. They left new rules for
my safety and a contact number should any new evidence find a path to our door.
I would no longer be allowed to walk home by myself, at least not until the
identity of this villain was discovered.

At this
point, I figured that the coast was clear, but it was murky at best. For almost
a week, the dust settled and I finally felt like the situation had resolved
itself. I was wrong. I was standing at the west end doors of my school waiting
for my brother. Jim approached me and informed me that I couldn't hide forever.
When Phillip appeared at the end of the corridor, Jim took off outside in a
flash. As we walked home for lunch, suddenly Jim sped by us. I can only
speculate the reasons why I did what I did, but his threat lingered in my mind
like I had read it in a comic book. I took one last chance and threw down the
gauntlet. "That's him," I said. "That's the guy." Jim kept
going, not looking back, and then he ran up a driveway and into his home.

Back in the
70s, his house was the same as it is today. One thing, however, stands out in
absence. The dead giveaway, sitting on his front lawn, was a tree stump,
painted white with his address in black cast iron pinned to it, a contrast that
truly stood out. A large black rock has taken its place now, Jim's family long
gone. When we finally made it to our home and through the front door, Phillip
explained all that had happened to my Mother. The police left a few hours
later.

I do not
know what became of Jim Duncan. I know that I never saw him again, either at
school or in the neighbourhood. My Mom told me he was sent to reform school,
that his threats were very serious and he was in big trouble. She explained
that for the rest of his life he would know what he did and would have to live
with it. Even though it was over, I felt as if I had played with his life, as
if I had dipped my fingers into the reddened pool of his future, which formed
puddles around his feet.

"What's done cannot be undone."

(Macbeth, Act 5, Sc. 1 -
William Shakespeare)

One person
can alter your direction, even if you fail to see any change in the sea. I have
little trouble recognizing that this brief but unforgettable series of events
still travels with me like a bloodstained helm. I am often covered in it
myself. No matter the time or distance, my hands will not come clean. For me,
the shame of homosexuality was ingrained by this overall experience. Deep roots
have grown for well over thirty years. I believe my entire sexual ideology has
basis in this childhood nightmare. My social need for others not to know, that
privacy and my secret disgrace, each of these had much foundation, resulting
from this matter. It is not that I believe I was all to blame for what
happened. It is not even that I have expunged Jim from his part in it. It is like
some well-aged level of post-coital remorse. It just keeps coming. Like some
Pavlovian dinner bell, my shame is relentless under its control. I stand
accused and I plead guilty.

As I lie in
bed thinking, I sometimes wonder where Jim is now. Did he rise above what we
had done, or did he suffer more from the consequence of my vindication? Just
before puberty kicked in, I used to scare myself thinking of him returning,
having hunted me down. I told myself he had plenty of reason should he do so. Years
later, I used modern technology in an attempt to find out what became of him.
There is no record I can find.

Hindsight
tells me that had I left the situation to itself, I would have escaped all
these years of wonder and self-deprecation. Perhaps some cold-hearted bitch
might punctuate that he got what he had coming, but my sentence was silent and
lingered for years. The entire thing was such a small amount of time, but has
been part of my life ever since. It was once my greatest secret. The choice I
made to "sweeten the pot" stays with me and occasionally still stains
the fabric of who I am now. I have had to learn to live with it and no amount
of scrubbing will make it go away.